Yep, here in the middle of Wisconsin that’s super common. Plenty of places have outright closed due to staffing issues and modified hours are common. A tourist city about an hour and a half north of me is really struggle - McDonald’s there is offering $20 per hour (that’s a lot in the Northwoods) and they’re still struggling to find people. I’ve been tracking our own city hall and they’ve had a record number of people quit this year - double like five years ago. The biggest generation (Boomers) are retiring and the Millennials and Gen Z aren’t nearly big enough in numbers to make up the difference. That’s a big factor.
I’ve read that this would have actually started back in 2008-2010 but the market crash killed so many jobs that it masked the demo shift. I don’t know if that’s true or not but the generation numbers make sense. I’m a journalist and I started my career interviewing people who couldn’t find jobs, and that shifted in about six years to hearing from businesses on how they couldn’t find workers. That started well before the pandemic (seemed to be around 2016-17) but seemed to get noticeably worse following it.
We're getting too old for that shit, at least some of us. I've got enough problems that even if I wanted to, I couldn't perform a job demanding any sort of physical labor. I can't even stand up or walk around for more than ten minutes at a time, these days. :-/
I can confirm your hypothesis about covid money going to plasma tvs -- got the information directly from our tv shop guy. Also, when gas was $5+ a gallon we were shocked how crowded Vegas was earlier this past year, how could people afford that trip?
I think one missing ingredient is the gig economy. I live in the suburbs of Bucks county in PA. Working for Uber, Doordash, etc. can be painful in an urban setting, but in the suburbs you don't have to worry about parking, crime, and you already have sunk cost into a car and insurance. So many gig workers they tell me it's something fun to do on the weekends for extra cash.
Also I think many older workers retired early during covid so we get a drop in workers bc of that.
A final morbid thought is a lot of elderly died during covid, not sure how many people benefited from any inheritances they have received. There has to be some stat on some government website we could use to confirm this.
Inheritance. That's an angle I hadn't considered! People who would otherwise be waiting tables or working a cash register at a gas station whose parents or grandparents died, and they suddenly were able to move into their house and have no more rent payments, or similarly experience a sudden drop in living expenses. Thank you.
Yeah think about it, it was the life insurance company CEOs who first sounded the alarm about the spike in excess deaths. If there's a spike in deaths surely there's a spike in insurance payouts? Would be interesting to know the magnitude of that and how it compares with your $47,400 number. Especially since it would be a large lump sum and not "just" a few hundred $$ spread out over many months.
According to Edward Dowd, the federal gov't is reporting a 10% increase in disability payments. Add this to the rise in excess deaths among the working age population and I think you have your culprit. Between repeat Covid infections and the shots making people sick (or worse), we've lost a lot of people.
Credit Karma allowed my to gamify fixing my (only mildly bruised but still problematic) credit after college. It was great to be able to identify all the problems and map out precisely when the blemishes would drop off and chart a course to when i would be able to finance a new (to me) car.
Yep. I pay off my credit cards every month now, but when I first got my grown-up job and had a big mess to clean up from being very poor for a long time, it was amazing. I had X per paycheck to use to pay down debt, and I could see which cards reported when, so I got the maximum score boosts, very quickly. That's how I got my score high enough to get an apartment in just a couple of months.
At first working the system feels a bit like cheating. Why should paying down debt in one way rather than another, within the confines of the agreements you made, offer you a score advantage?
But that's exactly the point. Playing the system well (within the bounds of honesty) is an indication that you are the kind of person who is safe to lend money to.
I know what you mean. The system is a game, and you have to play it, but there are times it feels oily. Out of nowhere and without my asking, one of my cards doubled my credit limit. That made my percentage of available credit used so much lower that my score went up just from that. The system is really set up to help people who are already making progress to make more, which feels unfair. I recognize that since I got my grown-up job I've been a model of responsibility so in some sense I've "earned" it, but I wasn't irresponsible before. I was just poor.
When you are poor it's hard to detangle the portion of a credit score that is a signal of irresponsibility. It's just a number that represents the level of risk involved in extending credit.
Financial products are oily. They have been so long enough for the Books of the Law and Muhammad to have issued directives to contain them. That said, i think that our modern Western sensibility is wired to detect and see any system that appears to create upward spirals as corrupt/oily. We have lost the cultural nuance to separate the problems of people getting left behind from the truth that (Peterson hat) those who have demonstrated that they are good players of the iterated game of life tend to be safer partners for the next iteration.
*Edit* Even things like the seeming corner case of the quick jump after a credit limit increase are actually a feature. One company deciding you are worth a larger risk sends a signal to other companies that they should do the same .
Problems with commenters in the past? It's the paying ones you have to watch out for in my experience. Case in point:
CVS, Chili's, Subway? At least no mention of Applebee's. Why Vermont sounds positively quaint. Do they all have those faux hand carved signs that are actually foam injection molded?
LOL! The Subway is one of those attached-to-a-gas-station ones. There's also a Longhorn. All the other places are local, for the most part, but they're in downtown Burlington. I hate driving in downtown Burlington so much that I will only do it to spend time in person with people I care about, which is not something I get to do regularly. Longhorn, CVS, and Chili's are all near my therapist's office, so good places to do a curbside order.
I've noticed a lot of business being massively short-staffed here in Louisville, KY, and my company is always hiring people in the $18-$22 range. The problem we see the most often is that people will come in for work, get excited about the job, and then (and this is borne out by exit interviews) decide that it's more work than they want to do, or they don't want to adhere to a rigid schedule. I don't know if that's the driving factor across the board, but it is something we see a LOT. Combined with everything else in the comments here, the work ethic and drive seems to be very lacking among people of all ages lately. Maybe there's just a sense of malaise in America?
Hey Holly, I’ve been following your stuff for quite a while.
As far as the economics of our current time: they are strange. I can’t understand what is going on, but I’d like to draw your attention to M2–the fed’s measurement of how much money exists. Look at the historically bizarre step-function during Covid and how it is dropping now, unlike any time in history. I doubt there is any person alive who can predict all the strange effects of such shocks to the money supply.
1) I've had the debit card refused at Walmart and did the same dance you did. I think Walmart decided to decline the card for a month as punishment for returning merchandise.
2) Credit Karma should consider sponsoring your substack. You are exactly the person they want their customers to aspire to.
None of this is happening in Ireland. However for a long period during COVID, many shops, restaurants etc would refuse to accept cash. That has changed now. I think a big reason for it changing was the banks charging exorbitant fees for cashless transactions. What did the retailers expect was going to happen?
I live in Florida and have not experienced either of the things you mentioned here. Businesses are booming with crowds and long lines. I see hiring signs pretty much everywhere I go, though. However, I moved here from Oregon and my friend from home just told me that our favorite restaurant, book store AND coffee shop all closed (or are closing soon) due to staffing issues and rising cost of doing business making it not worth it anymore. So sad. :((
Two books came out recently that may provide a partial explanation of what you are seeing in your area: Men Without Work by Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute (updated this year after the pandemic) and Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves. Eberstadt claims (and backs it up with painstaking research) that 1 in 7 men of prime working age in the US (25-54) are not in the labor force (He calls them NILFs:). These men are not counted in unemployment numbers because they are not seeking employment. Matt Welch of The Fifth Column Podcast interviewed Eberstadt recently (episode 376: "All the (Unemployed) Young Dudes"). It's a fascinating discussion and the episode is free. Highly recommend. Short answer--they're "watching" (TV, videogames, etc.) and taking pain meds. It's a sad situation.
We've got lots of that here in the UK - a lot of military aged - mostly African - coming across the English Channel in rubbery dingies - having paid £thiusabds to people smugglers - they are out up in 4* hotels and food and pocket money, medical treatment as well as dentistry - even though we have lots of homeless - especially veterans.
The politicians have been complicit in this for the past 10 years - it's really appalling how the WEF has Infiltrated our governments.
I own a cafe in Golden, Colorado. We have been having massive staffing issues since COVID ended. I talk to all kinds of small business owners and we can’t figure out where all the workers are. There are still both new and old programs in Colorado with regard to sick time, enhanced health emergency sick time, and now family leave that make it easier to stay home and get paid. Employers can’t even ask employees to prove they are sick. As well, employers have to put up with a lot from poor performers and folks who often don’t show up because without them we couldn’t stay open at all. Folks who are great workers burn out quickly because every business is running understaffed.
Yep, here in the middle of Wisconsin that’s super common. Plenty of places have outright closed due to staffing issues and modified hours are common. A tourist city about an hour and a half north of me is really struggle - McDonald’s there is offering $20 per hour (that’s a lot in the Northwoods) and they’re still struggling to find people. I’ve been tracking our own city hall and they’ve had a record number of people quit this year - double like five years ago. The biggest generation (Boomers) are retiring and the Millennials and Gen Z aren’t nearly big enough in numbers to make up the difference. That’s a big factor.
Interesting! So do you think it's at least partially a numbers game, and would've happened anyway without COVID?
I’ve read that this would have actually started back in 2008-2010 but the market crash killed so many jobs that it masked the demo shift. I don’t know if that’s true or not but the generation numbers make sense. I’m a journalist and I started my career interviewing people who couldn’t find jobs, and that shifted in about six years to hearing from businesses on how they couldn’t find workers. That started well before the pandemic (seemed to be around 2016-17) but seemed to get noticeably worse following it.
You've earned it - well done.
What about Gen x for unskilled labor? Where are they?
There aren’t too many of us either, and most of us have moved up to management or professional roles. Tough to replace all those Boomers!
We're getting too old for that shit, at least some of us. I've got enough problems that even if I wanted to, I couldn't perform a job demanding any sort of physical labor. I can't even stand up or walk around for more than ten minutes at a time, these days. :-/
Ha ha I've been wondering the very same!
I can confirm your hypothesis about covid money going to plasma tvs -- got the information directly from our tv shop guy. Also, when gas was $5+ a gallon we were shocked how crowded Vegas was earlier this past year, how could people afford that trip?
I think one missing ingredient is the gig economy. I live in the suburbs of Bucks county in PA. Working for Uber, Doordash, etc. can be painful in an urban setting, but in the suburbs you don't have to worry about parking, crime, and you already have sunk cost into a car and insurance. So many gig workers they tell me it's something fun to do on the weekends for extra cash.
Also I think many older workers retired early during covid so we get a drop in workers bc of that.
A final morbid thought is a lot of elderly died during covid, not sure how many people benefited from any inheritances they have received. There has to be some stat on some government website we could use to confirm this.
Inheritance. That's an angle I hadn't considered! People who would otherwise be waiting tables or working a cash register at a gas station whose parents or grandparents died, and they suddenly were able to move into their house and have no more rent payments, or similarly experience a sudden drop in living expenses. Thank you.
You're welcome!
Yeah think about it, it was the life insurance company CEOs who first sounded the alarm about the spike in excess deaths. If there's a spike in deaths surely there's a spike in insurance payouts? Would be interesting to know the magnitude of that and how it compares with your $47,400 number. Especially since it would be a large lump sum and not "just" a few hundred $$ spread out over many months.
Oh just encountered https://nypost.com/2022/12/18/it-pays-not-to-work-in-bidens-america-thanks-to-welfare-benefits/
Yeah and I still don't know how long lasting those benefits are I think most of them are time limited to six months but not 100% sure.
Inheritance . Wow. Great point.
According to Edward Dowd, the federal gov't is reporting a 10% increase in disability payments. Add this to the rise in excess deaths among the working age population and I think you have your culprit. Between repeat Covid infections and the shots making people sick (or worse), we've lost a lot of people.
Credit Karma allowed my to gamify fixing my (only mildly bruised but still problematic) credit after college. It was great to be able to identify all the problems and map out precisely when the blemishes would drop off and chart a course to when i would be able to finance a new (to me) car.
Yep. I pay off my credit cards every month now, but when I first got my grown-up job and had a big mess to clean up from being very poor for a long time, it was amazing. I had X per paycheck to use to pay down debt, and I could see which cards reported when, so I got the maximum score boosts, very quickly. That's how I got my score high enough to get an apartment in just a couple of months.
At first working the system feels a bit like cheating. Why should paying down debt in one way rather than another, within the confines of the agreements you made, offer you a score advantage?
But that's exactly the point. Playing the system well (within the bounds of honesty) is an indication that you are the kind of person who is safe to lend money to.
I know what you mean. The system is a game, and you have to play it, but there are times it feels oily. Out of nowhere and without my asking, one of my cards doubled my credit limit. That made my percentage of available credit used so much lower that my score went up just from that. The system is really set up to help people who are already making progress to make more, which feels unfair. I recognize that since I got my grown-up job I've been a model of responsibility so in some sense I've "earned" it, but I wasn't irresponsible before. I was just poor.
When you are poor it's hard to detangle the portion of a credit score that is a signal of irresponsibility. It's just a number that represents the level of risk involved in extending credit.
Financial products are oily. They have been so long enough for the Books of the Law and Muhammad to have issued directives to contain them. That said, i think that our modern Western sensibility is wired to detect and see any system that appears to create upward spirals as corrupt/oily. We have lost the cultural nuance to separate the problems of people getting left behind from the truth that (Peterson hat) those who have demonstrated that they are good players of the iterated game of life tend to be safer partners for the next iteration.
*Edit* Even things like the seeming corner case of the quick jump after a credit limit increase are actually a feature. One company deciding you are worth a larger risk sends a signal to other companies that they should do the same .
Problems with commenters in the past? It's the paying ones you have to watch out for in my experience. Case in point:
CVS, Chili's, Subway? At least no mention of Applebee's. Why Vermont sounds positively quaint. Do they all have those faux hand carved signs that are actually foam injection molded?
LOL! The Subway is one of those attached-to-a-gas-station ones. There's also a Longhorn. All the other places are local, for the most part, but they're in downtown Burlington. I hate driving in downtown Burlington so much that I will only do it to spend time in person with people I care about, which is not something I get to do regularly. Longhorn, CVS, and Chili's are all near my therapist's office, so good places to do a curbside order.
There's a big theatrical musical in Dublin which had to shut down as so many cast and crew fell ill.
The audience were seated and everything, when the producer came out to cancel. At first the audience thought it was part of the show.
I've noticed a lot of business being massively short-staffed here in Louisville, KY, and my company is always hiring people in the $18-$22 range. The problem we see the most often is that people will come in for work, get excited about the job, and then (and this is borne out by exit interviews) decide that it's more work than they want to do, or they don't want to adhere to a rigid schedule. I don't know if that's the driving factor across the board, but it is something we see a LOT. Combined with everything else in the comments here, the work ethic and drive seems to be very lacking among people of all ages lately. Maybe there's just a sense of malaise in America?
Hey Holly, I’ve been following your stuff for quite a while.
As far as the economics of our current time: they are strange. I can’t understand what is going on, but I’d like to draw your attention to M2–the fed’s measurement of how much money exists. Look at the historically bizarre step-function during Covid and how it is dropping now, unlike any time in history. I doubt there is any person alive who can predict all the strange effects of such shocks to the money supply.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
1) I've had the debit card refused at Walmart and did the same dance you did. I think Walmart decided to decline the card for a month as punishment for returning merchandise.
2) Credit Karma should consider sponsoring your substack. You are exactly the person they want their customers to aspire to.
None of this is happening in Ireland. However for a long period during COVID, many shops, restaurants etc would refuse to accept cash. That has changed now. I think a big reason for it changing was the banks charging exorbitant fees for cashless transactions. What did the retailers expect was going to happen?
I live in Florida and have not experienced either of the things you mentioned here. Businesses are booming with crowds and long lines. I see hiring signs pretty much everywhere I go, though. However, I moved here from Oregon and my friend from home just told me that our favorite restaurant, book store AND coffee shop all closed (or are closing soon) due to staffing issues and rising cost of doing business making it not worth it anymore. So sad. :((
I moved out of Oregon this year too. Sad indeed.
Holly this sounds conspiratorial but perhaps we
had massive numbers of people die over the last 2-3 years due to COVID/Vax/misc.
Think about it, if 10-12% of people died would you even know? I mean I *THINK* it would be obvious, but would it be?
Perhaps that level of death would present itself exactly like what we are seeing today?
Yes. We are seeing the same things in Southern CA/ AZ / TX where I travel frequently. Even pilot shortages are common now as well.
(Counterpoint / there were massive baggage handler shortages in the summer of 2021 that seem to be rectified)
But your overarching hypothesis is valid; the gradual degradation / de-evolution of society is underway.
We now wait 7-12 minutes for a cup of coffee, or in a drive through line for 15 mins for a chicken sandwich. And we just accept it.
Not to sound too moribund but I used to believe that societal progress was inevitable, now I am not so sure.
Two books came out recently that may provide a partial explanation of what you are seeing in your area: Men Without Work by Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute (updated this year after the pandemic) and Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves. Eberstadt claims (and backs it up with painstaking research) that 1 in 7 men of prime working age in the US (25-54) are not in the labor force (He calls them NILFs:). These men are not counted in unemployment numbers because they are not seeking employment. Matt Welch of The Fifth Column Podcast interviewed Eberstadt recently (episode 376: "All the (Unemployed) Young Dudes"). It's a fascinating discussion and the episode is free. Highly recommend. Short answer--they're "watching" (TV, videogames, etc.) and taking pain meds. It's a sad situation.
This is really interesting, and disturbing. Aimless young men in large numbers are legit dangerous for any society. Wow.
We've got lots of that here in the UK - a lot of military aged - mostly African - coming across the English Channel in rubbery dingies - having paid £thiusabds to people smugglers - they are out up in 4* hotels and food and pocket money, medical treatment as well as dentistry - even though we have lots of homeless - especially veterans.
The politicians have been complicit in this for the past 10 years - it's really appalling how the WEF has Infiltrated our governments.
I live in the Houston, TX suburbs and have never seen a store closed due to lack of workers. I’ve seen more than normal ‘help wanted’ signs, though.
I'm in the piedmont of NC and staffing is an issue.
I own a cafe in Golden, Colorado. We have been having massive staffing issues since COVID ended. I talk to all kinds of small business owners and we can’t figure out where all the workers are. There are still both new and old programs in Colorado with regard to sick time, enhanced health emergency sick time, and now family leave that make it easier to stay home and get paid. Employers can’t even ask employees to prove they are sick. As well, employers have to put up with a lot from poor performers and folks who often don’t show up because without them we couldn’t stay open at all. Folks who are great workers burn out quickly because every business is running understaffed.